These days, if you want to watch a TV show, or a movie, or heck, even play a game, you can pretty much do it on any device you wish. Your computer, game console, phone, and even sometimes directly your TV itself can access YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and other services for immediate streaming of videos. With the integration YouTube provides, you can watch a video on a product and buy it right there with the click of one link. You can watch Game of Thrones on the go via your phone or play Overwatch on your PC hooked up to your 40 inch TV for maximum quality Tracer vs D.Va action.
It wasn’t always like that though. Even just a decade and a half ago, the idea of using your TV as a computer monitor, or watching movies on your PC, were ideas in their infancy. The union between the TV and the PC for entertainment would take another decade to truly mature, as televisions became more computer monitor like, and analog standards of old feel to (arguably) better digital standards. Combine that with digital content providers to contrast traditional television service and you have the comfortable on demand entertainment industry that we all love today.
Now, though, let’s go back to 1999, and take a look at what people were preparing as the future of computer technology and television tech in unison. Some ideas seem eerily familiar, while others are just crazy and in retrospect seem doomed from the start.
Enjoy this look back and remember it wasn’t that long ago. At least, it doesn’t feel that way. Funny how time passes in the world of technology.